For me, the premise and principles surrounding the Storm Archetype are in many ways synonymous with Arcade style Fighting Games and Hack-n-Slashes. To truly excel and master either genre, one must take a considerable amount of time understanding the nuances, the proper frames for each animation, the hitboxes for characters, and especially in Marvel vs Capcom, the synergies between characters and assists to further your combo.

Storm operates under a similar function. For those who may not be aware, Storm decks are built with the idea of generating net-positive mana with the use of various rituals like Manamorphose, Desperate Ritual, etc, cantrips that help filter our deck like Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions, and recycling effects like Past in Flames to help reuse spells. All individual spells are counted as the number increases to the point of sufficiency. At that point, we unleash our efforts with one simple outlet that gets multiple copies thanks to the Storm mechanic.

Grapeshot is our mainboard win; the effect of dealing 1 damage is then copied for each spell played before we cast Grapeshot in one turn. In theory, if I played 19 spells prior to casting Grapeshot, I will receive 19 additional copies of the spell, dealing lethal damage to the other player.

Up until just recently, Storm was significantly underpowered in that it only had 1 creature-enabler, or in other words a creature that reduced the cost of spells we cast. Goblin Electromancer had been the only useful creature until the release of Aether Revolt, where Storm builders received Baral, Chief of Compliance. This made things exceptionally good as now the archetype was given an additional 4 cards of the same cost-reduction effect.

A keepable hand would look something like 3 lands, 3 cantrips and 1 ritual. Missing a few key components, however that can be fixed thanks to our scrying of the topdeck, getting rid of unwanted cards like additional lands.

A hand you should AVOID would look like: 4 lands, 2 rituals and 1 creature-enabler. You've no way to draw cards, and there's just as likely a chance that your next three turns will draw lands, putting you further behind than where you ought to be.

Suppose you've drawn another Gifts, and need to continue your storm count? The second Gifts package ought to look like - Serum Visions, Sleight of Hand, Manamorphose, Grapeshot. Again, Past in Flames will have already been resolved this turn, so no matter what your opponent chooses there is no drawback for you.

There is also an alternative package, assuming an opponent has dealt with your enablers. This Gifts package would look as follows: Goblin Electromancer, Baral, Chief of Compliance, Postmortem Lunge and Past in Flames. Postmortem Lunge is a recent addition, and has proven to be quite viable. Not only do we get to reanimate one of our enablers with , but presuming we are able to go off with Past in Flames, we are also able to recast it, delcaring X=2, thus reducing the casting cost to reanimate our second enabler!

So here is an alternate Storm build, one that's a lot of fun if it plays as you intend it.

Dragonstorm is both awesome to say, and fairly easy to pull off, given the absurd Red Mana we generate. Once it hits, we basically search our library for every Dragon we've added, in a specific sequence.

The procedure goes as follows, your first three tutors will be the three Scourge of Valkas. The first enters, and deals 1 to your opponent. The second enters, dealing 2, and triggers the first which deals an additional 2. The third enters, dealing 3, the first triggers dealing 3 and the second triggers dealing 3. Total Damage: 14

Bogardan Hellkite enters, dealing 5, which triggers the three Scourges, dealing an addition 12. And the final Hellkite enters, deals 5 and triggers an additional 15 damage.

The total damage is an unreasonable 51, before attacks.

One of the other benefits of this is, suppose we were to unfortunate gas out - whereby our cantrips and rituals just didn't yield what we what, or heaven forbid we draw a dragon early. No problem! Manamorphose gives us the ability to make mana of any colour, and all the rituals make 3 each spell, so assuming we've a pool full of mana and nothing to do - we can sink it into a dragon and bide us our time, as our opponent needs to deal with it first and foremost.

This is what would come out of the Main deck for this super cute iteration:1. Grapeshot x3

Updates

Played a few test games so far against Death's Shadow Zoo - opponent ended up putting me to 5 life, before I went off. Luckily, since it's a Shadow deck their life total was at 11 so the storm count didn't need to get too high.

The Madcap Experiment package with Platinum Emperion also works quite well vs Burn. They don't normally have spells large enough to get rid of an 8/8 and he negates their burn spells.

Sideboard (15)

Maybeboard (7)

2x Bogardan&emsp13;Hellkite

2x Dragonstorm

3x Scourge&emsp13;of&emsp13;Valkas

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